Brisbane's $1.88 billion Gateway Upgrade Project is utilising the expertise and resources of a wide range of locally-based contractors.
Boylan Traffic Solutions is supplying the road barriers for the project - a contract which is significant to ensuring the safety of the thousands of people working on Queensland's largest ever infrastructure project.
Boylan Traffic Solutions currently has 1100 safety barriers on and around the approaches to the new bridge structure, being built as a duplicate to the existing Gateway Bridge.
BTS national operations manager Wayne Duckworth said the Gateway was the largest project the company had been involved with in its three-year history.
``We're delighted to be part of such a significant project that will ensure more efficient and safer travel for Queenslanders,'' Mr Duckworth said.
He said BTS barriers were currently in use as a secondary safety measure for workers on top of the structure as they lift and piece together the many 250 tonne sections of bridge.
``It's a delicate process and one where worker safety is obviously a paramount concern,'' he said.
Mr Duckworth said BTS's newly-launched Team Safety initiative was an indication of the company's commitment to safer roads.
Team Safety is spearheaded by television motorsport commentator Neil Crompton and BTS managing director and race driver Peter Boylan.
Its aim is to spread the road safety message wherever possible, with special emphasis on security for road workers.
Boylan Traffic Solutions began operations in NSW three years ago. It expanded to Queensland last July where plans are under way for a new purpose-built workshop and office complex at its Springwood site.

 

                                                 A 1912 Stanley steam car

 

 

The world's first recorded motor vehicle accident victim was Mary Ward, an Irish scientist who died in 1869 after falling under the wheels of an experimental steam car built by her cousins.
It had been thought that steam transport would be the next big thing in the mid-1800s, but although trains certainly caught on, cars didn't fare so well. They were unreliable, and they did too much damage to the already uneven roads. In 1865, the Red Flag Act imposed a strict speed limit of four miles per hour in the country and two miles per hour in the town. This effectively put an end to the steam car, but some enthusiasts still had one, often home made, like the one that caused the world's first motor vehicle fatality.
Mary Ward died after being thrown from the car on a bend in the road. She fell under its steel wheel and died almost instantly.

The steam car enjoyed a resurgence in the US in 1897 when twins Francis E. Stanley and Freelan O. Stanley built their first car. Over the next two years, they produced and sold over 200 cars, more than any other US manufacturer.